Very similar in characteristics does not make them equivalent, nor does it make the outcomes similar. Methanol and ethanol are very similar, that doesn't mean I'd recommend using them interchangeably.
Communism is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production, as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order.
Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy.
Very similar.
France has a 75% tax on the rich, government run healthcare, etc. How is that not socialism.
France has a 75% tax on the rich, government run healthcare, etc. How is that not socialism.
France has a 75% tax on the rich, government run healthcare, etc. How is that not socialism.
Yea I saw afterwards honestly. Cars and homes are not means of production, ah well. Anyway I'm not against public ownership of roads but it doesn't justify socialism.
1989 was some of the worst years to live in USSR. Not sure what point there is to be missed. In 1989 some economics textbooks were saying USSR was a model communist economy and proof that communism can work as an alternative. That worked out well, it collapsed in 1991.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Samuelson
Yes from wiki, it is such a well known example though.
What sticks out about other countries is that their upper bracket starts at a much lower income level. The top bracket in the US is $400,000. The top bracket in Canada is around $125,000. The top bracket in France was something like $80,000 IIRC. Other countries also have higher taxes on capital gains. That means guys like Romney don't away with bullshit like 13% effective tax. Average people in France make out like bandits compared to average Americans. They pay similar taxes but get all kinds of free stuff like free day care. To make up for it, their doctors drive BMWs instead of Ferraris.No it doesn't, it has a top tax bracket that seems high
What works, is keeping Government spending (Taxing/Killing, etc.) assholes away from the general populous.
Free markets.
Freedom.
-John
What works, is keeping Government spending (Taxing/Killing, etc.) assholes away from the general populous.
Free markets.
Freedom.
-John
Shall we go over American History, like 300 years ago?
-John
A nation, begets laws... a constitution.
America's constitution, had things like;
All men are created equal.
No taxation without representation.
The freedom of speech, and religion.
etc.
Lots of freedoms. Few Government.
-John
A nation, begets laws... a constitution.
America's constitution, had things like;
All men are created equal.
No taxation without representation.
The freedom of speech, and religion.
etc.
Lots of freedoms. Few Government.
-John
You realize the constitution was created for the express purpose of increasing government power, right?
Only a textbook with a complete lack of understanding of what communism was would claim the USSR was a model communist economy, however, they would have been correct in asserting that a centrally planned economy could work in place of a capitalist once. Consider just what the USSR accomplished under Stalinism in terms of development. Between the Russian Revolution in 1917 and WWII, the Soviet Union went from very little in the way of manufacturing, being largely agrarian at that point to one of the major industrial powers of the era. In the post WWII era, the Soviet Union GDP grew at a faster rate than the US did, and they did it without the benefit of wealthy allies to prop them up. This overnight superpower also managed to produce war material at sufficient quantity to if not necessarily keep pace with NATO and allies, kept up with them well enough to pose a serious military threat to everyone. Had they not faced the external pressure from every other wealthy and well established nation on the planet ganging up on them, it is entirely possible the Soviet Union would still be around today.
Yes, they had a lot of agricultural problems, but in fairness, Russia as a whole kind of sucks for growing things. If a centralized economy had arisen in say, the US, where we have enormous amounts of natural resources as well as what is probably the best farmland in the world, a lot of the famine problems likely would have been avoided. Also, it is worth considering just how far technology has come since the advent of data analytics in the information age, a centralized economy would likely be vastly more efficient today than it was during the Soviet Union given how far we've come in modeling and predicting human behavior and the capacity to organize and spread information.
Now, I'm not advocating for that model, I'm not saying it doesn't have significant downsides, I'm not saying it isn't wide open to abuse and corruption and data manipulation, but to simply write off centralized economies because one of them failed would be like writing off democracy and capitalism because South Vietnam fell.
In the sense that the Articles of Confederation left it utterly hamstrung, yes.
That is not to say it was intended to provide for limitless government.
You realize the constitution was created for the express purpose of increasing government power, right?
Well right, but that's a straw man as no one argues that.
And yet I find that some on the left have difficulty identifying any limits that haven't been essentially nullified by the supreme court. Notably the 10th amendment.
Granted, but have we ever seen one arise in a location that wasn't already impoverished, already stuck in widespread misery and suffering?It's not that one of the centralized economies failed. It's that with almost no exception, they are characterized by widespread misery and suffering.
I don't disagree, my point is not that they are good, my point is that they work and they can work well. The Five Year Programs industrialized Russia at a tremendous speed - far faster than even a lot of richer nations. That is what so often irritates me about this discussion is that people are either ignorant of or feel they must lie about what happened to oppose command economy instead of opposing it on legitimate grounds such as that an unaccountable state telling everyone what to do, no exceptions, is an affront to liberty. That alone should be enough to oppose it even though works.Furthermore, even if they can compete with a capitalist system on any level, they still come explicitly at the expense of the freedom of its citizens. Centralized economies aren't just inherently dysfunctional. They're morally wrong, assuming you view general liberty as a moral right.
The American economy was built on slavery, the opposite of freedom. The free market post-Civil War led to frequent bank collapses, people losing entire life savings for no reason, children working in mines instead of going to school, women working in mills 12 hours/day 7 days/week and these families remaining in galling poverty. The vast majority of the nation's elderly lived in poverty before Social Security. Food and drugs were frequently tainted or fraudulently labeled. Life is much, much better since the Fed was created and more regulation was placed on the free market.Shall we go over American History, like 300 years ago?
-John
The Constitution has nothing about "all men are created equal," but it does have a clause about how some men count for 3/5 of a person when figuring out representation so slave-owners could have more power.A nation, begets laws... a constitution.
America's constitution, had things like;
All men are created equal.
No taxation without representation.
The freedom of speech, and religion.
etc.
Lots of freedoms. Few Government.
-John